This case is presently before the Court on defendant Federal Republic of Germany's Motion to Dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Plaintiff, Mr. Hugo Princz, filed this action to recover damages sustained by him as a result of his internment by the Nazis during World War II. For the reasons stated below, Defendant's motion is denied.

I. Background

The background facts to this case as alleged by the plaintiff are as follows.

Mr. Princz is a Jewish American who was taken into custody by the Nazis during World War II and placed in a concentration camp for the duration of the War. At the time of his internment, Mr. Princz was an American citizen and an unemancipated minor, living with his mother, father, two brothers and a sister in what is now Czechoslovakia. His father, a naturalized American citizen, was engaged in business activities in Czechoslovakia. In 1942, approximately ninety days after the formal declaration of war between the United States and Germany, Mr. Princz and his family were arrested by the Slovak Fascist police, turned over to the German SS, and sent to Camp Maidanek in Poland.

Almost all Americans captured by the Nazis were released in a prisoner exchange sponsored by the International Red Cross. Mr. Princz and his family, all American Jews, were not released.

The atrocities committed by the German Government against the plaintiff and his family cannot adequately be described in words. Mr. Princz believes his parents and sister were killed in the concentration camp known as Treblinka. The German Government sent Mr. Princz and his two brothers to Auschwitz. Mr. Princz and his two brothers were then "leased" by the German Government to the German chemical cartel I.G. Farben and enslaved at a facility close to Auschwitz called Birkenau. During the course of his enslavement at Birkenau, Mr. Princz witnessed the intentional starvation of his two brothers. Mr. Princz was subsequently sent to the Warsaw Ghetto Camp, forced on the death march from Warsaw to Dachau, and enslaved at the Messerschmidt underground airplane factory. Mr. Princz is the only member of his family to survive the barbaric acts of the Nazi regime.

Subsequently, the Federal Republic of Germany set up a hardship fund of $ 1.2 billion to assist Holocaust survivors who, for excusable reasons, had not filed a timely application for a pension under the earlier laws. This fund is administered by the Jewish Claims Commission in New York; the German Government has no control over eligibility determinations or disbursement of the hardship funds.

Mr. Princz did apply for a hardship payment from this fund. However, his counsel was advised that these funds are being reserved for genuine hardship cases. Since Mr. Princz has been able to work as a grocery clerk, and his wife has worked as a bookkeeper, he is not eligible to receive a hardship payment.

In 1984, Plaintiff sought the assistance of Senator Bradley of New Jersey, who subsequently enlisted the assistance of the U.S. Department of State. The German government formally advised the State Department that Mr. Princz did not qualify for any government-sponsored reparations. The State Department then attempted to obtain a so-called ex gratia reparation payment from the Defendant government, which declined to make such payment.

In 1986, counsel for plaintiff attempted to obtain an ex gratia payment from Germany. The Defendant's Embassy in the United States verified that Mr. Princz was a Holocaust survivor and requested that the German Foreign Ministry in Bonn submit such a request to the German Parliament. On December 8, 1987, plaintiff's counsel was advised that the German Foreign Ministry had declined to submit such a request.

According to counsel for Defendant at the December 11, 1992 hearing before this Court, Mr. Princz's situation was presented to the German Supreme Court, which held that the 1969 statute of limitations for filing pension claims was final, thereby precluding consideration of another application for a pension through the URO process at this time.
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Plaintiff believes that he is one of only two U.S. nationals who survived internment during the Holocaust. The other was captured in Holland and is receiving a pension.
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II. Jurisdiction

The sole issue before the Court at this time is whether or not the Court has jurisdiction over the Federal Republic of Germany to hear this case. Defendant, in its Motion to Dismiss, argues that since plaintiff's claim does not fit any of the exceptions to Congress' broad recognition of immunity to other nations contained in the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1330 et seq., plaintiff's complaint must be dismissed.

Finding that Congress intended to enact a comprehensive statutory scheme governing U.S. courts' jurisdiction over foreign nations,
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the Supreme Court in Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess, 488 U.S. 428, 109 S. Ct. 683, 102 L. Ed. 2d 818 (1989), held that the FSIA is "the sole basis for obtaining jurisdiction over a foreign state" in U.S. courts. Jurisdiction in such a case "depends on the existence of one of the specified exceptions to foreign sovereign immunity" found in the FSIA. Id., at 688 (citations omitted). This is the clearly stated rule.
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This case does not merely involve a violation of international law. This case involves an American whose most fundamental rights of citizenship and as a human being were violated. Mr. Princz was interned by the Nazis. He was enslaved by the German Government and German companies. He witnessed the tortured deaths of his two brothers and lost both parents and his sister to German brutality as well. To describe Auschwitz, one of the two concentration camps where he was interned, as a human butcher shop would be generous. What individuals like the plaintiff in this case suffered in the Holocaust were acts of barbarism, committed by a merciless government in flagrant disregard of international law, the laws of civilized societies and all principles of human decency.

MR. PERLES: He is only one of two American citizens who are Holocaust survivors, Your Honor . . . that we know of. The other individual was captured in Holland, and he received a pension, because under Dutch law . . . they go on a basis of where you were captured, not the nationality of the captured individual.

THE COURT: Well, was he originally a U.S. citizen and he was caught in Germany? What happened? How did he get into the concentration camp?

MR. PERLES: He was a U.S. National and at the time an unemancipated minor with his family. His father was a U.S. National, and an American businessman in what is now called Slovakia or Czechoslovakia, and they were arrested after -- roughly 90 days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Their U.S. documents were destroyed. They were turned over by the Slovak Fascist police to the 55 and their U.S. papers simply weren't honored.

THE COURT: And so he is -- you say he was a U.S. National. Was he an American citizen?

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